falklueke.com

For the young department of ZEIT online ZEIT Zuender, I took a look on which european nations are using which Social Networks (The text behind the link is German only, but I think you will understand it anyway). While researching, I stumbled across some sites new to me. The result might be read within minutes - but working on it was quite some work (especially, since you won’t believe that some nations seem not to use any social networks).

Not mentioned in the article, since not in the EU: Одноклассники (to be read: Odnoklassniki, in english “classmate”) from Russia, saying it would have 15 Mio registered users. Russian, too: В Контакте (”in contact”), the first Facebook clone looking even more like the original than 2006 started German StudiVZ.

Not available since a few days is Ekipa.hr (in english something like “Team”), which even though I don’t know croatian seemed to be quite interesting, regarding technical issues.

Imagine you are a real conservative. You believe in principles such as law and order, you think everyone breaking laws should be arrested and some at least receive death penalty. And you think you found someone who shares the same ideas and values you do. He’s a politician at the GOP, a tough guy known for being a real conservative.

And then he turns out to be one of the founders of one of the most famous cracking group with more than 20 years history. This is the story of Tony Krvaric, as Rawstory reports. Swedish born Krvaric is said to be Strider, one of the founders of the Fairlight software cracking group. For some time, their slogan was: when dreams come true.

Some worlds have collapsed, I’m quite sure.

[via Torsten]

Occasionally, I check what I can find about my former class mates on search engines. I think it is a good indicator on where the line of on-/offline people is right now.

It’s no surprise that most of the names do not result in at least one hit. But it starts to change a little bit: some of them are working at companies which offer employee profiles or something similar online. One year ago, even this was almost unavailable.

But still it’s a very few people I can find online that way. It’s easier to search for them on StudiVZ, the german facebook clone (even though I’m quite sure most of them are no students anymore these days :)). On Xing, in Germany a very popular business networking platform such as Linked-In, even less of them registered.

I doubt this will change soon. On the other hand, significant change already happened, compared to some years ago when I was one in three who were “googleable”. This is not the generation where the majority has grown up with computers and the net already. I think it’s the last one before.

The green is coming to Berlin again: spring is returning, slowly, steadily. Just like many people from all over europe do: if you walk on the streets now, hang around in cafes or bars, you’ll hear a mixture of spanish, italian, french, czech, polish, american and british english as well as “euro english”, swedish, danish, dutch and sometimes you’ll even hear some german.

And in fact, I really like that. Will be a nice spring and summer. I think I need a camera.

From last wednesday until friday, in Berlin the german “blogger and other net inhabitants” conference re:publica’08 took place. For the second time, most of the german language blogosphere and international guests came into the great location of the Kalkscheune in the very center of Berlin (geographically, hence a center does not exist for real in this city).

About 900 people registered for the conference and I really don’t have a clue about the real numbers. It was a great meeting place to me with some coffee, club mate, beer based talks. I moderated a panel on political video podcasting on friday, which is online available (german only). Sebastian Reichel from the german Ministry of Work and Social Welfare, Robert Heinrich from the german Green Party, Bernd Steinmann from the labor union ver.di and scientist Jan Schmidt from the Hans-Bredow Institute discussed about the now-and-then impact of political videos on the internet. I had a good time with these four very smart guys, who turned out not to be aliens in the online world.

Since I moderated a panel on the topic of Politics on the Internet at re:publica’07 too, I really enjoy a look forward on next years re:publica’09: in beginning of June the European Parliament Elections will take place, in September or October the german federal elections will follow. It will be a great time for discussions and in-depth-workshops for all those who are interested in internet based political communication.

I met a lot of very nice people. Old friends whom I met online for the first time more than 10 years ago, new faces I never met before but know for years via the net and absolutely new ones. I really enjoyed the time and hope to see all of you again next year.

(I did not write articles on anything regarding the conference since I was involved into the programs committee.)

..I’m still protesting this shit« is written on a sign of a protester against Iraq war.

What I can’t believe: it’s obviously meant to be citizen media. But it’s “All rights reserved”, so nobody is allowed to reuse it without special permission of the person who made this shot.

I think it should - at least - be published under this license. This would help it’s spreading around the globe a lot, I think.

..the reply is not going to be a no if you twitter things like this. (And here is the answer.)

I really don’t care whether it’s fake or not, but at least it points me once more to a paper I’d like to write about the concept of the evolving public privacy and the different types of using communication infrastructure in our days.

Yesterday I attended the web monday in Berlin. For more than two years now, it’s a place where new startups, ideas and projects can be presented to a web crowd, from programmers to journalists to users to investors to…. Well, everyone.

Yesterday, two new software projects and a short introduction to an upcoming conference, the Re:Publica’08 were shown.

The first of the two projects was keiala. It’s a twitter-interacting social calendar tool, making you tell people what your are going to do next based on your entries at you keaiala-calendar. Smart stuff, the presenting guy Alex Lang did a good job. He even provided some “user” interaction: the audience should vote on a new designs main color. Of course there was no way of finding an absolute majority for one out of seven choices given, but pink seems to be out of the race at least.

The second project was vizeo.net. Company representative Jascha Vogel faced some tough questions on a Revver.com based platform which aims to provide new and more functions and especially a focus on the german market. It turned out to be a little bit unfair when the speaker does not have real time access to Twitter while the audience is live deconstructing his business approach.

Well, 40-something people attended and I had a nice evening there. Web monday Berlin obviously is alive.

I’m a little surprised by the overboarding creativity of German entrepreneurs. For example, take a look at a typical german breakfast.

It’s called Frühstück (by word, it’s translation is “early piece”). After I wake up and some time is left, I visit the bakery and buy some scones (”Brötchen”) or cut some slices of bread, butter it and put some jam or chocolate hazelnut cream, some cold meat or cheese on it. I drink a hot chocolate, tea or coffee, which is the most popular choice for breakfast in Germany. Sometimes I really like to have some variation in my breakfast, so I boil an egg or make some Müsli.

Of all the things eatable in the paragraph above, there is one thing to start with: the latest. Müsli. Last year a German startup went online with a nice web shop: MyMuesli.com. You can mix your very own Müsli by choosing from a list of ingredients. The company delivers your preferred mixture by mail.

Then, a few days ago, another startup went online. It’s a service called Sonntagmorgen, means sunday morning. And it’s all about your favourite taste of coffee. You are a real expert in coffee beans, in espresso, cappuccino and coffee grinders? You can mix your very own Coffee by choosing from… Well, you already know.

Now there is another service: MyCornflakes.com. And I’m quite sure we are going to see MyEgg, MyHotChocolate, MyButter… sooner than later Oh well, and not to forget MyCopyCat.com. If I sound like a cynic, you are right. They don’t use APIs, so I can’t mix my very own breakfast in widgets. Need some coffee, now.